Vision & Mission
The IMGA promotes lifelong competition, friendship and understanding between mature sportspeople, regardless of age, gender, race, religion, or sport status. Its mission is to offer worldwide multi-sports events for mature athletes in attractive destinations, in a sustainable manner, in the spirit of ‘Sport for Life. Life without limits’.
Goals
The IMGA’s goals are the following:
1. Strengthen and grow the Masters’ sports movement
2. To encourage mature individuals to be active and engage in competitive sport throughout their lifetime.
3. To promote sustainable tourism and sport showcasing environmentally and socially responsible events.
Core values and guiding principles
As a sports association, the IMGA seeks to act responsibly and sustainably. It therefore focuses on highlighting the UN Sustainability Development Goals (SDG’s) where it can have biggest impact through its event activities and organisation, based on the three pillars: people, planet and prosperity. Its Masters events provide adults with opportunities to meet like-minded people, explore beautiful locations and play the sports they love.
To monitor the execution of the UN Sustainability Developmment Goals the IMGA presents a full report for each event using the Event Impact Manual where uniform KPI’s have been established on the following topics, supporting the UN SDG’s:
- Economy
- Image
- Society
- Environment
Objectives
Through its activities, the IMGA seeks a number of outcomes to achieve its goals, in the process creating different types of value for its stakeholders in its ecosystem. Specifically its objectives are to:
- raise awareness of healthy lifestyles and social connection through sport in community.
- leverage athletes’ data to customize and enhance their experience.
- promote healthy lifestyles and social connection in the Masters’ community
- increase economic and social value generated in host city destinations, both in terms of the tourism revenues as well as the social cohesion and health benefits of sport.
- build momentum for sustainable use of existing venues and public transport, enhancing access and use of local facilities as well as building momentum for sustainable mobility solutions.
Key Activities
The IMGA organises several international multi-sport events for Masters athletes, including the World Masters Games, Winter World Masters Games, and regional Masters events.
The World Masters Games is the IMGA’s flagship event and is officially the world’s largest mass-participated international sports event. It takes place every four years, attracting tens of thousands of athletes to new locations worldwide.
The IMGA continues to build on its work through the following initiatives:
- Collaborating with key partners to further develop Masters sport
- Making use of data analytics to develop customer insight, in order to ensure continued relevance of IMGA events across its segments and to build the communities.
- Working with sports medicine professionals to promote health in mature individuals.
- Partnering with local governments to promote the triple bottom line and sustainable tourism.
- Activating the local population to participate in sports.
- Building a global online Masters community.
